Over the years, I’ve passed out a lot of cards, hoping to open a dialogue with people about their tattoos, but often never hearing from them again. That’s just the way it goes. Occasionally, I will run into them by chance, and we’ll be able to connect and put something together.Such is the case with …

I met Seth on a lower Manhattan train platform in August.I noticed he had some interesting tattoos on his wrists and I asked about them.These skyline tattoos are super cool, even moreso when you see that they wrap entirely around his wrists:Seth explained that, “both wrists feature the Brooklyn Bridge, but one is as if you were going from Brooklyn to Manhattan and the other the opposite direction.”He added:”Being a transplant, I had set a goal of living in NY for one year at some point in…

On Friday evening, I was standing on the subway platform at Columbus Circle, headed to Central Park, when I looked over and saw a young woman with a stunning tattoo on her thigh.As the train approached, there was not much time for discussion. I gave her my card and asked if I could take a picture of the tattoo. She consented:Even though the top of the wolf headdress is covered by fabric, you can still see what a stunning tattoo this is.I did…

Last week I met Joel on Broadway, downtown near Bowling Green. His arms were fully tattooed, with a panoply of black and grey work. He was kind enough to share this small section with us:We talked about the two elements above in great detail.First is the portrait on his forearm, which Joel explained:”The tattoo artist is out of Miami, Javier Betancourt (@JavierBetancourt) … he was doing a week-long stay at Three Kings [in Brooklyn] … my wife … found him on Instagram … I had this idea for something much more subtle, actually, it was just sort …

Last July, I met Natasha, who shared the work on both upper arms, including this stunning geisha:The detail in this is amazing, including the back side of the arm:Her other arm sports a lotus blossom and a koi:Unfortunately, I lost the name of the artist responsible for this beautiful black and gray work.Thanks to Natasha for …

One of the last tattoos I spotted in 2015 was this Snow White piece on Julianna, who I met on the steps of Federal Hall:Julianna explained what compelled her to get this Snow White tattoo:”It’s the story behind it, about how it’s the story of temptation, how … Snow White’s known as the most beautiful [and] how eating the poison apple [represents] temptation; it’s like Yin …

A couple weeks ago, I was on the C train early in the morning, headed to Penn Station, when a woman got on with incredible tattoos.We didn’t have much time to talk, and it was rush hour, but I did pass her my card, inviting her to send me photos.A few hours later, on Amtrak to Albany, my email pinged and I was delighted to receive an email from Christine, not only sending me pictures of the tattoo I had admired on the subway, but some work that I wouldn’t have been …